Shoreline Targets Single-Site Enterprises With New IP PBX Solution

SUNNYVALE, CA, October 28, 2002 - Shoreline Communications has introduced a new IP PBX solution targeted at providing single-location enterprises with an affordable entry point to advanced voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology.

The new Single-Site Enterprise Solution, a streamlined version of Shoreline's award-winning Multi-Site Enterprise Solution, offers a set of features scaled and priced to meet the needs of enterprises with 100 or fewer telephone users all at the same location – one of the fastest-growing market segments for VoIP.

The Single-Site Enterprise Solution, based on the Shoreline3 IP PBX system, was developed as a direct result of Shoreline's collaboration with the reseller partners it has signed nationwide since inaugurating its move from direct to channel sales in April.

"Our resellers were quick to embrace Shoreline's IP PBX approach for larger, multi-site enterprises," said Jennifer Stagnaro, chief marketing officer at Shoreline. "But recently they have identified a growing number of single-site companies, as well as self-contained satellite offices of larger companies, that are looking to VoIP to gain greater control of their phone operations and budgets. With VoIP these companies can have internal staff quickly and easily make the adds, moves and changes that once brought hefty fees from the phone company and took days to implement. We've worked closely with our reseller partners to define a bundled solution that fits this market in terms of features and price."

"A lot of the action in the IP PBX market is occurring at the low end – in sub-100-user, single-site companies and branch locations," said Rich Costello, Research Director at Gartner, Inc. "Properly-timed vendor solutions are poised to take full advantage of that growth opportunity."

The Single-Site Enterprise Solution retains the key technology advantages of Shoreline's multi-site solution: a fully distributed call-control architecture that eliminates the single point of failure common to server-based VoIP and legacy PBX systems; and a simple web-based management system requiring configuration of only one device regardless of the number of switches and users.

Mark Swendsen, vice president of sales and marketing at reseller Ketchum Integration, which has sold more than 150 Shoreline systems, said, "There's a huge number of single-site companies out there who need the same level of VoIP functionality as their larger competitors, but who up to now haven't found a comfortable entry price. Shoreline's new offering lets these companies take advantage of a unique combination of features unmatched in any other VoIP system: carrier-grade reliability, the industry's most intuitive management system, an elegant unified messaging platform, unlimited email, and the flexibility to use any phone handset. A company can start with a single 12-port switch at one location and later scale easily to multiple sites and hundreds or thousands of users, with no wasted hardware or 'forklift' upgrades."

Components of Shoreline's Single-Site Enterprise Solution

The Single-Site Enterprise Solution includes:

one or more modular ShoreGear voice switches, dedicated call-processing devices delivering 99.999 percent availability. Available models are the 24-port ShoreGear-24, the 12-port ShoreGear-12, and the ShoreGear-T1, which provides a T1 interface for high-density trunking to the central office.

the ShoreWare voice services application suite, including a single-site version of the Shoreline Call Director web-based management tool, plus a single-site enterprise server providing integrated voice mail for up to 100 users and automated after-hours call answering and routing.

cost-effective, readily available standard analog telephones well suited to the distinct needs of management, employee or lobby use.

From Single-Site to Multi-Site: Full Hardware/Software Investment Protection

When a company expands to more than one location, Shoreline offers a license-key upgrade which activates features critical to multi-site enterprises: least-cost routing to minimize long-distance tolls; call queuing (placement of incoming calls into a first-in/first-out queue with interactive voice response); concurrent director logins (allowing administrators at different sites to simultaneously make changes at their locations); integration with third-party interactive voice response systems; and the Advanced Call Manager, which extends the Personal Call Manager with "presence" information, allowing administrators to view real-time data on users' call status and call-handling modes.

Shoreline's highly scalable modular architecture ensures that companies upgrading from single- to multi-site IP PBX solutions will have their original hardware and software investment fully protected.

Pricing and Availability

The Shoreline Single-Site Enterprise Solution is available immediately through Shoreline resellers. Solutions are individually priced based on the particular hardware, software and telephones selected, as well as installation costs. At the low end, a typical 38-user system would be list-priced at $22,240. A typical 96-user system would be list-priced at $52,175.

A license-key upgrade to multi-site enterprise capability is priced at $7,500.

About Shoreline Communications

Shoreline Communications Inc. has been shipping IP phone systems since October 1998, with more than 71,000 IP voice stations installed. The award-winning Shoreline IP Voice Communications System is a platform based on Shoreline's Distributed Internet Voice Architecture, designed to meet enterprise requirements for scalability, reliability, and manageability. In addition, the Shoreline system provides both a rich set of integrated voice services as well as standards-based interfaces to 3 rd party voice applications that enhance personal and organizational productivity. For more information, visit www.goshoreline.com or call 1-877-80SHORE.